Мастер и Маргарита

Театр на Таганке

The Театр на Таганке or Taganka Theatre is situated in an Art Nouveau building at Taganka square in Moscow, on the spot where had been a prison before. The theatre was established in 1964 by Yuri Lyubimov (1917-2014) and continued the traditions of his theatre school, the Vakhtangov Theatre, while it also tried to explore the possibilities of the epic theatre created by Bertold Brecht. As a matter of fact the first production was a play written by Brecht, Der gute Mensch von Sezuan and it was highly noticed. One of the characteristics of the Taganka became the so-called poetical theatre. The repertoire was partly based on the works of Andrey Andreevich Voznesensky (1933-2010) and other poets.

Under Lyubimov's direction this theatre became the most popular in Moscow, but it got lots of trouble from the Soviet authorities who banned many productions. Lyubimov even lost his citizenship and was banned to the west in 1984. His successor, Anatoli Efros (1925-1987), was boycotted by the actors, and after his death in 1987 a confirmed communist, Nikolay Gubenko (1941-), was put in charge. Then, in 1989, by the time the Soviet imperium imploded, Yuri Lyubimov got back his civil rights and returned to the theatre, but the group splitted. Some continued working with Lyubimov, others followed Gubenko when he started the Community of Taganka actors.

The Taganka Theatre has known quite a lot of social and political agitation, but it survived and is very popular among the Moscovites and their visitors. On the repertoire are, among others, Elektra by Sophokles, Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, The Adolescent by Dostoevsky, Faust by Goethe, and The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov.

Still today the Taganka Theatre plays almost daily The Master and Margarita. The play is on the repertoire since April 6, 1977, and the action is accompanied with music from Sergey Sergeevich Prokofyev, Tommaso Albinoni, Johan Strauss and Yuri Butsko.